On May 1, the Pinglu Canal reached a major construction milestone as the Qingnian Hub, the canal hub closest to the sea, breached its cofferdam to divert water. This marks the official transition of the Pinglu Canal hub project into the wet commissioning phase. To ensure the safe and efficient execution of the ship lock water-filling tests and the removal of remaining earthwork, the construction management team opted to first breach the No. 2 cofferdam downstream of the ship lock. The water-filling process is expected to last for approximately one week.
The Qingnian Hub had already taken the lead in launching dry single-machine and single-lock commissioning on March 18. During the dry testing period, which lasted for over a month, the Pinglu Canal construction management team conducted multiple rounds of tests on the ship lock's hydraulic, electromechanical and other systems. These dry tests focused on verifying the operational posture of the lock gates, the mechanical performance of the hydraulic hoists and the electrical control systems, ensuring that all indicators met the design requirements.
According to the construction schedule, the wet commissioning phase will sequentially involve wet testing of individual gate equipment and joint wet system integration tests. The primary objectives are to inspect the sealing performance of the gates and valves under wet conditions, adjust operational parameters, and optimize the synchronization and opening/closing speeds of the gates. Additionally, the tests will evaluate whether the performance of all ship lock equipment and the centralized control system meet the requirements for the safe passage of vessels under design conditions, thereby ensuring the ship lock is fully ready for navigation.
Moving forward, the Pinglu Canal construction management team will continue to leverage the digital twin system and the fully independent and controllable simulation platform for the ship lock control system. By strictly controlling the quality of the commissioning process, the team is fully committed to achieving the goals of zero defects in equipment installation and zero failures during test operations, ensuring the canal is completed and opened to navigation on schedule.
Source from: China Transportation News Network